The Mayor of London’s Transport for London report was recently published and the numbers look good: the number of bicyclists passing count points increased by 5% between 2008/09 and 2009/10; and bicycle ridership into central London at peak commute times increased by 123% between 2001 and 2009.

The report contains an entire section on the “Year of Cycling” initiative. Data for the Barclays Cycle Hire bike-sharing program is particularly interesting. From the report:

Barclays Cycle Hire was launched in July 2010 for members, and currently comprises approximately 5,000 bicycles and 350 docking stations, spread across 45 square kilometres in the centre of London.

In total, more than 100,000 people have signed up as members of the scheme, making an average of around 20,000 journeys on the bicycles every day. More than 1.7 million journeys had been completed by 19 November 2010.

Most of those using Barclays Cycle Hire do so regularly, with eight in ten using the scheme at least once a week and two in ten using the scheme five days a week or more.

Barclays Cycle Hire has attracted people who were not previously cycling in London, many of whom have now started to cycle frequently; six in ten scheme users surveyed in September and October 2010 had taken up cycling in the last three months.

The fact that 6-in-10 bike-share users have taken up bicycling in the past three months is very encouraging!

The demographics are not good. It’s still just white affluent males (20-40 years old) who are cycling, bike hire scheme or no bike hire scheme. Only 4% of users shifted from the car.
Good luck achieving double digit modal share when children, women and the elderly won’t cycle because of the danger.